Are bloggers the same as writers, journalists, under the Australian AI framework?

21 July 2026

Last week the Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese unveiled his government’s AI strategy. Part of the proposed framework includes a provision to ensure Australian writers, musicians, artists, and journalists, are paid in the event their work is used in the development of AI agents.

This is as it should be. Anyone else who wants to access copyrighted material needs to pay. It should be no different for the big tech, and AI, companies.

As someone who writes predominately online, a blogger, I see myself as either a writer and/or a journalist, in terms of this framework. I know it sound like I’m being pedantic, and surely most people would assume a blogger is regarded as a writer or a journalist.

But is that the way I would actually be viewed under the proposed AI framework? Albanese, after all, made no mention of bloggers, or other online content creators.

Of course, the Prime Minister’s speech was a statement of policy intention, and the finer details, will, I assume, come later as the AI strategy is devised.

The matter is of interest though, as I’m one of who-knows-how-many Australian bloggers whose writings have been harvested in recent years, most likely by AI companies. Would bloggers also be subject to the provisions being proposed for writers, musicians, artists, and journalists?

Or does the exclusively digital nature of a blogger’s work somehow diminish its stature? Will any sort of payment for work copied or used by AI companies only apply to mediums that exist firstly in a physical form, such as books or paintings?

These are mediums that can be digitised (somehow), making them attractive fodder for knowledge hungry AI agents, but does their physical form still give them precedence?

To be clear, I’m not talking about copyright. Any work created in Australia is protected by copyright laws, including that of bloggers. Generally for copyright to apply, a work must be created by a person, be original, and be “fixed”, that is, the work must exist in a tangible form.

This includes content on a web page. Australian bloggers are covered then by copyright. Regardless of whether anyone actually takes notice.

But while Australian copyright laws apply to “people who express original ideas and information in certain forms“, the proposed AI strategy, based on what we know at present, seems far more specific. Writers, musicians, artists, and journalists. Not bloggers, or other content creators working online.

Time will tell though whether Albanese was being specific or not.

As I wrote last week, given the amount of scraping and copying that has already occurred, a large number of Australian creatives will have already lost out, in terms of compensation.

It’s my feeling then any payments that AI companies may be required to make, will only apply to works created after any legislation is enacted. Anything else could be complicated to say the least.

Again though, time will tell.

Kristoffer Tjalve, Elliot Cost, discuss Internet Phone Book, on Wonders of Web Weaving podcast

20 July 2026

A new edition of the Internet Phone Book is in the works, and co-publishers Elliot Cost, and Kristoffer Tjalve (also a Tiny Awards organiser), recently spoke about the esteemed directory on the Wonders of Web Weaving podcast.

There are a ton of podcasts out there, but I take time out to tune in to Wonders of Web Weaving, hosted by James’ Coffee Blog, when a new show is posted.

Production is refreshingly straightforward and stripped back. Absent are ads, the seeming requisite chessy/generic intro/outro music, and conversation starts without delay. There’s a rawness seasoned podcast listeners may not care for, but to me this is part of the charm.

Sometimes glitches even make it into the final cut. On one occasion, someone’s connection dropped out part way through, which was simply acknowledged instead of being smoothed over in post-production. Re-wilding the web in true IndieWeb/SmallWeb fashion…

AI here to stay, accept it, says Australian government, vows artist copyright protection

17 July 2026

Anthony Albanese, the Australian Prime Minister, says he wants to make Australia an “attractive destination” for investment in AI development, during a speech delivered on Wednesday.

Albanese also wants to balance the opportunities and risks presented by the technologies, particularly concerns that AI uptake will result in widespread job losses.

AI will take away jobs, he said, but will also create new and different lines of work.

Among proposals is a coordinated national framework, rather than a state-by-state approach, that will oversee matters including the construction of AI data centres.

In short, data centres will be required to generate their own power, by way of renewable energy sources, and minimise water consumption.

During his speech, Albanese also gave an undertaking to protect the intellectual property of Australian writers, musicians, artists and journalists:

An artist’s creative endeavour is their work and their property. No company should use Australian books, music, art or news to build or train AI without the artist’s control. That includes the artist’s control of the price and value of their work. Anything less, is theft.

These are words Australian artists and creatives wanted to hear.

Protections will doubtless be included in upcoming legislation, but after rampant marauding of creative material by AI scraper bots in recent years, the move might come too late.

The proposed laws might protect work created in the future, but what of copyrighted content that has already been copied, and digested, by AI agents?

Will AI companies who used creative work in the past be required to offer retrospective remuneration? Will these entities, many of whom are based outside Australia, be the slightest bit concerned by these proposals?

Australian government proposes AI national framework, standards

16 July 2026

Clare Armstrong, writing for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC):

Australia will seek to harness the benefits of artificial intelligence without losing control of it by tackling challenges such as data centres, copyright, and jobs through a new national framework.

Buoyed, no doubt, by the… success of the social media ban for Australians aged under sixteen, the Australian government is setting its sights on AI.

But I shouldn’t be so cynical.

An Office of AI will be established within the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, and will be tasked with drafting standards guiding development and deployment of the technologies.

Roger Montgomery: how SpaceX achieved that two trillion dollar valuation

16 July 2026

SpaceX’s two-trillion dollar (US) share-market valuation astonished market analysts, investors, and probably a great many other people, alike. Roger Montgomery, an Australian financial adviser, sets out in simple terms how the remarkable figure was calculated. My head is still spinning.

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economics, space exploration, trends

Reading was something we used to do before AI came along

13 July 2026

Rose Horowitch, writing for The Atlantic (gift link):

Reading has come to seem extraneous even to some of the best-educated members of society. Margaret Rennix, Harvard’s assistant director for humanities and social-sciences support, told me she’d spoken with a student who was struggling to read a book written in Old English. The culprit: Anthony Burgess’s 1962 novel A Clockwork Orange. (The student used ChatGPT to “translate” the book into easier language.)

I used to read a lot. But that was when for a couple of years I wasn’t doing too much writing here. Once blogging resumed, reading, or finding time to read, became more challenging.

There’s a correlation here. That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it. Nothing to do with AI. One activity increases, the other decreases. There’s only so much time in the day, after all.

It’s a poor excuse not to read though. And then there are book bloggers, who need to read in order to blog meaningfully about what they say they’ve read.

The example of the Harvard (how can that be?) student who was struggling to read A Clockwork Orange is another matter though. I don’t know anything about the individual in question, but I suspect blogging wasn’t holding them back from reading.

Maybe they simply didn’t like the novel, even if it was required reading for their course.

Move over Wordle, here is a new word game: 18 Words

13 July 2026

If you’ve had enough of Wordle, here’s something new to try.

You’re given a jumbled-up selection of letters, and have thirty-seconds to figure out the word. The game starts out with a couple of four-letter words, but the they get longer as you progress.

There’s no need to tell anyone how you fared….

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entertainment, games, language

The Tiny Awards, celebrating the best personal, independent, non-commercial, and newest websites

11 July 2026

The resurgence of personal, independent, and non-commercial websites has been with us for several years, propelled in part by the IndieWeb/SmallWeb communities, and a heap of discontent — to say the least — with the present, excessively commercial, nature of the web.

And this revival couldn’t be more timely. When once we looked at scores of websites daily, today the attention of many people is dominated by perhaps a mere half dozen. But escaping the claustrophobic confines of these so called walled-gardens need not be a challenge.

Web directories — being listings of websites — once a staple of the early web, are also returning in abundance, and teem with links to personal, independent, and non-commercial websites. Ye Old Blogroll is but one example, and if you’re seeking the other web, is a great starting point.

Discovery by way of web directories is not the only path to a more personal, less commercial web, however. Web awards are another option. In the same way perhaps the long and short lists of literary awards, are a great way to source quality book reading suggestions.

The sample may be smaller than the offerings of web directories and good old fashioned blogrolls, but in web awards there might be more chance of finding something you can engage with.

Say web award aloud though, and the response may not be all that enthusiastic. Web awards are sometimes perceived as little more than online fraternities. Places where the usual suspects congregate, to take part in an annual round of mutual backslapping.

Money and influence pave the way to the winner’s podium. These are not arenas where personal, independent, and non-commercial websites, are welcome.

Since 2023 though, the Tiny Awards have been quietly reshaping the perceptions of web awards. For one, commercial websites, and apps, are barred. That means we’re only ever going to see the real deal. In addition, and just as importantly, websites entered for the Tiny Awards cannot be more than twelve months old. You’re at no risk of running into even one of the usual suspects here.

Founded by Matt Muir, Matt Klein and Kristoffer Tjalve, who is also a co-publisher of the Internet Phone Book, the Tiny Awards celebrate the independent, quirky, and utterly unique. Something even a cursory glance at the previous three winners quickly makes apparent.

Rotating Sandwiches, the 2023 winner, by Lauren Walker, might evoke a feeling of déjà vu in people who have been, yes, surfing the web since the 1990’s, an era when personal websites were not personal websites, unless they baffled and awed.

In 2024, the sadly no longer online One Minute Park (Internet Archive link), designed by Elliot Cost, who incidentally co-publishes the Internet Phone Book, triumphed. And in 2025, Fifty Thousand Names, a memorial to the then fifty-thousand people killed in the Gaza war, by Leo Scarin, won.

These are websites we do not see often anymore. And that, says Kristoffer, is part the idea of the Tiny Awards. He hopes to see a change in “the public perception of what makes a good website.”

He cites the work of French landscape architect Gilles Clément as an analogy. Clément would sometimes incorporate weeds in his garden designs. As he sees it, “weeds are no longer a symbol of abandonment, but an expression of resilience.”

Incorporating “weeds” into website design? How’s that for re-wilding the web? Kristoffer is in favour.

“I believe a similar shift would be beneficial for the web, and I’m happy that the first three winners all represent slightly different designs compared to the traditional online awards, because maybe they are foreign compared to the public perception, but they are surely more native to the web.”

In that context, it seems apt One Minute Park won the 2024 award. For those who missed it, the site featured rolling motion footage, clips of sixty seconds duration each, of public parks across the world. Rare is the public park that is completely weed-free, whether that be intentional or otherwise.

But One Minute Park was not the only website honoured by the Tiny Awards in 2024.

One Million Checkboxes, designed by Nolen Royalty, won a special category dubbed the Multiplayer award. So called as the project allowed anyone visiting One Million Checkboxes to participate in the action. The dual awards in 2024 made me wonder if the Tiny Awards might one day expand to include other categories. Or something along the lines of, say, a lifetime achievement award.

Matt Klein said that while the organisers had given the idea thought, they like the awards as they are.

“At their core, I think, the Tiny Awards reject the notion that people need awards to feel good about their work. If you’ve made something with passion and your own hands, and put it out into the world, that’s the reward in itself.”

That’s a sentiment that resonates with me. The only real reward I often seek in my web work is to be writing here, at my website. And as Matt Muir says, encouraging the creation of new websites of a personal, independent, and non-commercial nature, is the main goal of the awards.

“I think it’s also important that we focus on new sites, to act as push-back against the (sadly all-too-prevalent) idea that the web is somehow dying; it’s not, people are building new things every day, you just need some help finding them.”

“The Tiny Awards is about celebrating the fact that the web is still growing, is still full of creativity, is still full of potential rather than looking back nostalgically at some imagined ideal of When The Web Was Perfect.”

Now in their fourth year, it’s fair to say the Tiny Awards are a fixture in the personal/independent web sphere. But what of the future? How long might the awards continue? Will they still be with us in a few years time? Or next year, for that matter.

Matt Klein’s response to the question is succinct, “It’s always been and will likely be: one year at a time.” Matt Muir doesn’t look too far ahead either, but thinks reaching five years would constitute a pleasing milestone.

Kristoffer sees no reason why the awards couldn’t continue indefinitely, as they’re relatively straightforward to organise, although this would be contingent on the ongoing support of both the Matts. Kristoffer would also like to see the awards carry on until they have a Wikipedia page.

I’m not sure exactly how serious that aspiration is, but after four years of the Tiny Awards, it seems like a page on Wikipedia can’t be too far away. That would surely be achievement unlocked. But someone tell me quickly: I’m not tempting fate in saying that, right?

Thanks to Matt Muir, Matt Klein, and Kristoffer Tjalve, for their assistance with this article.

Use the AI compass to chart your AI archetype

7 July 2026

Find out where you sit on the AI compass, which is a little similar to the vote compass.

There are thirty AI classifications including sceptic, Luddite, conscientious objector, doomsday prepper, founder, and prophet. Each has a patron saint. Mine is Amanda Askell, though I’m not entirely sure I agree with my archetype, “The True Believer”, but who knows.

Simon Willison — should we dub him Mr AI? — is, according to the compass, “The Garage Tinkerer”, whose patron saint is none other than… Simon Willison. What are the chances?

Australian authors, songwriters, musicians demand payment from AI companies

7 July 2026

Individuals, educational institutions, and other organisations have to make payment in some form or other to access the work of writers, musicians, artists, and other creatives.

It seems like a naive question, but why should it be any different for the tech companies who are presently helping themselves to whatever material they can get their hands on, so as to train their AI agents? Particularly if the same tech companies expect users to pay to access their AI products.

Of course all writers, artists, musicians, etc, wherever they are, should be receiving compensation if any of their work is being used to train AI agents.

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